Getting Started

Setting Up Your Environment

• Download and install the latest copy of Visual Studio.
• Download a copy of SKSE64 and extract the folder skse64_X_XX_XX. This folder will be our working directory, and all instructions will be made relative to this folder.
• Open up src\skse64\skse64.sln. This is the the solution we will use to manage and build our own projects. Don't worry if the solution complains about source control; feel free to remove it. The solution may also ask you to upgrade the SDK/toolset. Again, feel free to upgrade them, as the SDK/toolset you use is not really important.
• Ensure your solution is configured to build in Debug.
• Disable SKSE's post-build events by selecting all projects, right click -> Properties -> Configuration Properties -> Build Events -> Post-Build Event -> Use In Build -> No. SKSE's build events are configured for their environment, however ours is different, so we won't be using them.
  • Ensure these changes are applying to all configurations.
• Select the SKSE project, click on the Build tab and go ahead and build the project. You may notice some common warnings/errors in your Error List:
  • E0070: This error is commonly thrown by SKSE's STATIC_ASSERT macro, and typically indicates that a size, or offset assert failed. Intellisense can fail to evaluate certain templated types properly, and will throw this error as a false positive while browsing, however the error should not be thrown during compilation. Feel free to ignore this error.
  • LNK4221: This link warning indicates an unused object file, which implies certain code is completely unused by the project. In a reverse-engineered resource such as SKSE, where you won't be using everything, you can feel free to ignore this warning.
• Copy src\skse64\x64\Debug\skse64_X_X_XX.dll to your root game directory (i.e. Skyrim Special Edition\skse64_X_X_XX.dll). You now have a debug build of SKSE ready for developing SKSE plugins.
• Finally, grab a copy of Steamless and use it to strip Steam's anti-debug DRM from your copy of SkyrimSE.exe. Now you can attach a debugger to Skyrim and set breakpoints without the program crashing.
  • Make sure to save the original executable and rename the unpacked one from SkyrimSE.exe.unpacked.exe to Skyrim.exe

Building Your First Plugin

SKSE

• Download the example plugin and extract it to src\skse64\.
• Add the project to the solution by selecting File -> Add -> Existing Project...
• Change SKSE64 to build as a static lib by right clicking on skse64 in the Solution Explorer and selecting Properties -> Configuration Properties -> General -> Project Defaults -> Configuration Type -> Static library (.lib)
• Finally, select MyFirstPlugin from the Solution Explorer and build it.

CommonLibSSE

• Vcpkg is what I use to automatically manage and build all of my dependencies. If you want to manage your dependencies manually, go ahead and skip these steps.
  • Download and install Vcpkg.
  • Integrate vcpkg with vcpkg integrate install
  • Go to triplets\community and duplicate the file x64-windows-static-md.cmake. Rename it to x64-windows-custom.cmake.
  • Install Xbyak with vcpkg install xbyak:x64-windows-custom.
  • Install span-lite with vcpkg install span-lite:x64-windows-custom.
• Add Skyrim: Special Edition's path as an environment variable entitled Skyrim64Path. This should point to the folder containing the main executable (SkyrimSE.exe).
• Clone a copy of CommonLibSSE to your computer and add its path as an environment variable entitled CommonLibSSEPath. This should point to the folder containing the solution file (CommonLibSSE.sln).
• Clone a copy of the example plugin to your computer.
• Open the example plugin's solution file (MyFirstPlugin.sln) and build it.

Debugging Your First Plugin

• Move your plugin from src\skse64\x64\Debug\MyFirstPlugin.dll to Skyrim Special Edition\Data\SKSE\Plugins\MyFirstPlugin.dll (the CommonLibSSE example project does this step automatically).
• Run Skyrim Special Edition\skse64_loader.exe and attach to it by selecting Debug -> Attach to Process... and choosing SkyrimSE.exe from the list of available processes.
• That's it! Your plugin is now loaded, and your debugger is attached to the process. Alternatively, you could try setting a break point before attaching the debugger and step through your plugin's code.